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Bryan Hansel, CEO of Smith Electric Vehicles U.S. Corp., drives one of the company’s all-electric, zero-emission commercial trucks that will be assembled in Kansas City. The battery-powered vehicles are at least 80 percent cheaper per mile to operate than conventional vehicles, Hansel says.

Rob Roberts

Staff Writer

Canteen Vending Services will have to sell a lot of snacks to cover its planned purchase of some of the first battery-powered delivery trucks produced at Smith Electric Vehicles U.S. Corp.’s new assembly plant at Kansas City International Airport.

The Smith Newton trucks, expected to start rolling off the line in the third quarter, will cost about $140,000 each, said Tim Goff, a senior vice president of Canteen’s Charlotte, N.C., parent, Compass Group North America.

Nevertheless, Compass Group plans to buy about 30 Smith Newtons during the next year and could convert is entire 10,000-truck fleet to battery power if the pilot test proves successful.

One reason for Compass Group’s early investment in the new-to-the-U.S. technology is that several states in which Canteen operates are expected to receive federal stimulus grants to help electric-vehicle purchasers cover 40 percent to 60 percent of the incremental cost of the vehicles.

Canteen probably will deploy its initially acquired Smith Newtons in states in which the grants are available. Goff said the vending company’s entire nationwide network is ideally suited to the battery-powered trucks.

“We’ve got 200 vending branches around the country,” Goff said, “and each of them is already equipped with electrical outlets in the parking lots because our trucks are refrigerated and have to stay cool at night. So we will be able to plug in the Smith Electrics and recharge the batteries at night, as well.”

The world’s largest electric delivery vehicle, the Smith Newton is already a proven commodity in Europe, having been manufactured for more than three years by Smith Electric Vehicles U.S. Corp.’s 49 percent stakeholder, The Tanfield Group PLC in England. It can carry a payload of as much as 16,060 pounds, has a top speed of 50 miles an hour and can travel 100 miles between charges.

Goff said a key advantage of electric vehicles is that they are proving to be almost maintenance-free, largely because they don’t have the thousands of moving parts of their combustion-engine counterparts.

Bryan Hansel, CEO of Smith Electric Vehicles U.S., said the battery-powered vehicles are at least 80 percent cheaper per mile to operate than conventional vehicles. And because they don’t burn fossil fuels, they will allow environmentally conscious companies like Compass and Frito-Lay North America to reduce their carbon footprints.

That’s why Frito-Lay, a division of PepsiCo, is planning to buy five to 20 Smith Newtons for a pilot test, company spokeswoman Aurora Gonzalez said.

“We have a strategy of becoming the most fuel-efficient fleet in America and are looking at a variety of options that can help us get there,” Gonzalez said.

Dave Meisel, director of transportation services for Pacific Gas and Electric Co. in San Francisco, said the firm had agreed to become Smith Electric’s U.S. utility launch partner, which eventually may lead to purchases of Kansas City-made electric aerial-lift trucks.

In the near term, however, PG&E probably will limit its purchases from Smith Electric to battery-powered Transit Connects, the light-duty vans that Smith Electric will begin assembling in Kansas City for Ford Motor Co. in 2010.

The hope of the launch partners, Goff said, is that by boosting Smith Electric’s production volume, they can accelerate the evolution of battery technology, leading to smaller and cheaper batteries, greater mileages per charge and broadened uses.

“If you look at what’s been happening in the computer world,” a Smith Electric brochure states, “you’ll have a good idea of what to expect in terms of cost and performance in battery technology. Roughly every 18 months, the cost of computer processors drops by half and performance doubles.”

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